Page:History of Art in Phœnicia and Its Dependencies Vol 1.djvu/226

 206 HISTORY OF ART IN PHOENICIA AND ITS DEPENDENCIES. joy, and was therefore associated in tombs, and especially on the pillows found in tombs, with the idea of a resurrection. He was also represented as guardian of one of the pylons of the infernal regions (Fig. 2I). 1 The pigmy-god, a near relation of Bes, is encountered no less frequently (Fig. 22). To show how great a popularity Bes enjoyed in the matter of these sepulchral figures, we may quote a monument that comes from Beyrout, a scarab in glazed earthenware, in which the forms of the god and the sacred insect are actually blended together (Fig. 141). " If we hold this little object at a particular angle we distinctly see the grimacing face with its tongue thrust out ; the joints of the beetle's armour form the feather crown, which is an attribute of the Egyptian Bes. Some hieroglyphs are carved on the flat underside, but as in so FIG. 141. Scarab, with face of Bes. Louvre. - many of the Phoenician imitations, they have no sense. It is well known that the image of Ptah in a state of embryo, which resembles Bes in more than one respect, often carries on its head a represen- tation of the insect so constantly associated in Egyptian symbolism with the god of Memphis." The distinctive characteristics of the various goddesses who were adored in Syria are as yet so far from being well established that we cannot attempt even to propose a name for each of the types of which the group of female divinities is composed. We are tempted to recognize an Astarte in the divinity, sometimes enthroned 1 T. DE ROUGE, Notice des Monuments Egyptiens, 1873, p. 143. MARIETTE, La Galerie de PEgypte andcnne au Trocadero, 1878, p. 116, cf. p. 10. See also HEUZF.Y, Catalogue, pp. 73-80. 2 See HEUZEY, Catalogue des Figurines antiques de Terre cuite, plate viii. Fig. 3. 3 HEUZEY, Catalogue, P/icnici'e, No. 206.